The invention relates to an irritation grenade to create irritation or shock to a human being.
Among other things, irritation grenades are used in hostage situations or aircraft hijackings in order to overpower the perpetrators. The irritation grenade is mainly in the form of a hand grenade with a preferably cylindrical receptacle that possesses at least one, and preferably several, chambers, e.g., drilled holes, extending parallel to the longitudinal axis and occupying the entire length of the receptacle. Said chambers contain active or effective charges such as sound or flash loads. A manually-operable igniter, usually a rocker-arm igniter, ignites a pyrotechnic delay charge that ignites the individual effect charges via ignition channels. These charges create a shock effect such as, for example, a very loud noise, a blinding flash, or similar, achieving an irritation or shock effect to the perpetrator and allowing him to be captured.
An irritation grenade of the type discussed above is known from WO 94/08200 in which a total of six compartments that transfix the entire length of the irritation grenade are positioned about the central axis of the irritation grenade and that are sealed by plugs at the upper and lower end, into which the particular effect charge is placed. Upon ignition of the effect charges the plugs are instantly ejected by the increasing inner pressure within the compartments, after which the combustion gases exit upward and downward from the receptacle via the now opened discharge ports. During this, recoil acting on the irritation grenade in opposing directions should be canceled out. It has been nevertheless shown, that after ignition of an effective charge, the irritation grenade may be displaced by several meters. Such an uncontrolled displacement presents the hazard of injury for any persons in the vicinity, particularly with those irritation grenades with several time-offset effects, but not only with them.